A survey of media departments in major U.S. advertising agencies examined the issue of data access, a topic that is becoming increasingly important as more and more data are made available. Issues considered included what users currently know about the subject; how they now deal with the mountains of data; and what they are prepared to do in the future to alleviate problems that arise. Results indicate a high level of awareness of the problems data overload can cause, together with considerable willingness to invest in additional equipment to improve the situation. Respondents are in fact eager to obtain more data and, even more so, better access to currently existing data, preferably via microcomputer. The continuing importance of this topic is underscored by respondents' feelings that the top priorities of the 1990s, in terms of data, are passive people meters and commercial ratings.
Marketing Managers all over the world are overloaded with an abundance of information data. This information "overkill" has its source not only in the computer department of an enterprise. A very large part of it is produced and distributed by Marketing Research Agencies themselves. In particular Panel Research Agencies produce at regular intervals volumes of computer data, crowding not only their own archives and desks but unfortunately also the heads of their clients. Instead of the lack of information known in the earlier stages of our history, high-volume data sources have been evolved today. Marketing Managers are desperately demanding assistance: it is not quantity, but quality of information that is needed. But out of the mass of information supplied Marketing Management wants the few crucial questions pinpointing and analysing. For this reason data analysis is becoming increasingly more important in Marketing Research than the problems encountered in the early days, those of data collection. Some new solutions to that old problem in Marketing Research are shown and illustrated by applying time-series-analysis and Marketing Information systems (MIS) by Marketing Research Agencies.